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The repackaged trade paperback of Cory Doctorow's miraculous novel of family history, Internet connectivity, and magical secrets―now with a new cover!

Alan is a middle-aged entrepeneur who moves to a bohemian neighborhood of Toronto. Living next door is a young woman who reveals to him that she has wings―which grow back after each attempt to cut them off.

Alan understands. He himself has a secret or two. His father is a mountain, his mother is a washing machine, and among his brothers are sets of Russian nesting dolls.

Now two of the three dolls are on his doorstep, starving, because their innermost member has vanished. It appears that Davey, another brother who Alan and his siblings killed years ago, may have returned, bent on revenge.

Under the circumstances it seems only reasonable for Alan to join a scheme to blanket Toronto with free wireless Internet, spearheaded by a brilliant technopunk who builds miracles from scavenged parts. But Alan's past won't leave him alone―and Davey isn't the only one gunning for him and his friends.

Whipsawing between the preposterous, the amazing, and the deeply felt, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town is unlike any novel you have ever read.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“I know many science fiction writers engaged in the cyber-world, but Cory Doctorow is a native...We should all hope and trust that our culture has the guts and moxie to follow this guy. He's got a lot to tell us.” ―Bruce Sterling on Cory Doctorow

“Cory Doctorow is just far enough ahead of the game to give you the authentic chill of the future...Funny as hell and sharp as steel.” ―Warren Ellis, author of Transmetropolitan, on Eastern Standard Tribe

“Doctorow throws off cool ideas the way champagne generates bubbles...[he] definitely has the goods to be a major player in postcyberpunk science fiction. His ideas are fresh and his attitude highly engaging.” ―San Francisco Chronicle on Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

“Artful and confident...Like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, Doctorow has discovered that the present world is science fiction, if you look at it from the right angle.” ―Vancouver Sun on Eastern Standard Tribe

“Doctorow peppers his novel with technology so palpable you want to order it up on the web. You'll probably get the chance. But technology is not the point here...What is unexpected, shocking even, is how smart Doctorow is when it comes to the human heart, and how well he's able to articulate it...” ―NPR on Eastern Standard Tribe

From the Back Cover

Praise for Cory Doctorow

"I know many science fiction writers engaged in the cyber-world, but Cory Doctorow is a native...We should all hope and trust that our culture has the guts and moxie to follow this guy. He's got a lot to tell us." --Bruce Sterling

"Cory Doctorow is just far enough ahead of the game to give you the authentic chill of the future...Funny as hell and sharp as steel."--Warren Ellis, author of Transmetropolitan, on Eastern Standard Tribe

"Doctorow throws off cool ideas the way champagne generates bubbles...[he] definitely has the goods to be a major player in postcyberpunk science fiction. His ideas are fresh and his attitude highly engaging."--San Francisco Chronicle on Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

"Artful and confident...Like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, Doctorow has discovered that the present world is science fiction, if you look at it from the right angle."--Vancouver Sun on Eastern Standard Tribe

"Doctorow peppers his novel with technology so palpable you want to order it up on the web. You'll probably get the chance. But technology is not the point here. What is unexpected, shocking even, is how smart Doctorow is when it comes to the human heart, and how well he's able to articulate it....He seems smart because he makes the reader feel smart. When Doctorow talks, when Art argues, we just get it. There's nothing between the language and the meaning. The prose is funny, simple and straightforward. This is a no-BS book."--NPR on Eastern Standard Tribe

Top customer reviews

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It starts out real good, a man is renovating his new home and the author is adding a boatload of details on how it is done. That's in itself is joyful as I am a sucker for renovation. Then he states something that you probably just think is a funny expression of his.A chapter later he says the same thing and adds another very curious observation. I just read along a bit nonplussed. Then another and I was totally hooked and.. Spooked in a fascinating way. It's all fabulous reading from that point.This was my first book by the author, I had read a novella before so I liked the way with words he had.After this... What a story, and what a strange man he must be. :-)

Other than "fantasy" or "horror" it would be tough to classify this book. Sometimes I feel like the character development is straying wildly into social issues that Doctorow pretty much has to pound on every time he sits down at the computer, but all the way 'round it works.

If you allready have a taste for Mr. Doctorows works, this is not one to miss.

I'm sure Cory Doctorow really is a "leading voice" of "next-generation SF" as the book jacket brazenly announces, but what does that really mean?

Kudos to Doctorow for fearlessly creating this fuzzy, hyperreal universe that bends and stretches all conventional narrative technique. Doctorow must see himself as some sort of latter-day literary infidel (after all, the protagonist's parents are a washing machine and a mountain) on a torch-blazing mission to the stars.

But with all the experimenting going on here, all the lip-smacking, throw-it-to-the-wind risk-taking in the writing, I found neither the characters nor the storyline compelling enough (or developed enough) to make this book interesting or enjoyable in the least.

This book is mainly comprised of lots and lots of technobabble, with very little substance. Is that what "next generation SF" really is? Isn't that kind of pretentious?

Plus, there's a pretty tangible mean streak in the text that is given neither thematic justification nor a much-needed irony; there are flippant bouts of violent atrocities on almost every page, and I began to tire quickly of all this bitter malice and revenge.

Six years after reading and still this book is with me, bubbling to the surface when I'm babbling on long car rides and inspiring me to try and explain why I'll never forget "My Mother Was A Mountain, My Father Was A Washing Machine" and the character borne of these wonderfully animate creatures. I'm overjoyed that a book like this can exist in our world, and even be linked to the mainstream world by the author's omnivoracity. I love Cory Doctorow's courage and his imagination, and this particular book stands the test of post-technological time, what a glorious gift for us all.

The quality of prose in this book is comparable to William Gibson’s, but not as accomplished as Ian M. Banks’, which some of the content parallells. Then again, neither is William Gibson’s. The writing moves along at a good clip and doesn’t get bogged down in any significant way, but I would have preferred a more contextually interleaved back story, to avoid a sense of a compilation of stylised anecdotes to fill this out.

After about three quarters the way through, I felt the plot had been somewhat lost to non-essential back story, and it all got a bit too limp for my expectations, with a sort of make-weight ending. But that is a complaint that can be fairly levelled at the majority of writers.

The technicalities border on the unlikely for those with a working knowledge of FreeBSD. For the APs, OpenBSD would have been a cannier choice because of its inherent security features and its recent implementation of wireless protocols and hardware integration, with the recent introduction of OpenBSD 3.7 and, soon to be released, 3.8.

The writing abounds with a dry wit and attention to detail that makes this a good read. But it could have been better for the more seasoned sci-fi fen, such as myself.